User interfaces (UIs) are employed by contemporary computer systems as a way to convey information to and receive instructions from users. It is typical in computer systems to employ a server environment and have various client side devices that interact with the server side of the computer system. As computer systems are expanded and new equipment is added, it is common for a computer system to evolve into arrangement of servers having various levels of memory, processing power and other capabilities. Moreover, client side devices can have many different levels of capability due to personal user choice in which devices are used including wireless devices that have greatly reduced computing power and streamlined applications as compared to that resident in a desktop or laptop computer.
As new client side devices come online in a computer system, application designers and developers are constantly required to rewrite user interfaces to various applications to support these new devices. Often, this level of maintenance is so labor intensive and expensive that many designers and developers opt for a least common denominator approach offering only the most minimal common functionalities that the user interface can support. Obviously, this approach does not offer a rich and fully functional user interface to a user and new and often expensive capabilities in the servers or client side devices are not utilized.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a scalable user interface that can automatically adapt to the available capabilities of the server environment and the client side devices in a computer system. In addition, it is desirable to have a scalable user interface that more readily allows new client side devices to be supported without the labor intensive developer support common in contemporary computer systems. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.